Certified diabetes educator “ambassadors” (CDE-A) – professionals trained by endocrinologists and practicing in primary care settings – can help patients with diabetes achieve significant patient improvements while easing the shortage of endocrine specialists available to treat the increasingly prevalent illness, says a medical team from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

The team conducted a retrospective review of 100 type 2 diabetes patients whose care was being managed by a CDE-A in a primary care setting and compared medical test results of those receiving CDE-A intervention with those who were not. The CDE-As continued to consult with the endocrinologist trainer on an as-needed basis, and any changes suggested by the CDE-A to the patient’s diabetes regimen had to be authorized first by the PCP.

The differences between the two groups were substantial: in the CDE-A intervention group, during the study’s four-and-a-half month period, patients’ A1c levels, weight, BMI, blood pressure measurements, LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels showed a marked improvement. In contrast, another group of patients with diabetes from the same practice who were not referred to a CDE-A showed no significant change in any of the measures.

“The improvements that occurred in ambassador-guided patients’ glycemia, blood pressure, lipids and body weight could potentially lead to significant reductions in macro- and microvascular complications as well as an improvement in the quality of life for these patients,” said Paresh Dandona, MD, PhD, FRCP, FACP, Director of the Diabetes and Endocrinology Center of Western New York at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “Further, this treatment approach can help reduce the magnitude of expenditures which currently occurs in the management of these complications.”